The churchyard gate was opened and closed noisily. They both glanced up.
Stephen Strangewey was coming slowly toward them along the flinty path.
Louise, suddenly herself again, rose briskly to her feet.
"Here comes your brother," she said. "I wish he wouldn't glower at me
so! I really am not such a terrible person as he seems to think."
John muttered a word or two of polite but unconvincing protest. They
stood together awaiting his approach. Stephen had apparently lost none
of his dourness of the previous night. He was dressed in gray homespun,
with knickerbockers and stockings of great thickness. He wore a flannel
shirt and collar and a black wisp of a tie. Underneath his battered felt
hat his weather-beaten face seemed longer and grimmer than ever, his
mouth more uncompromising. As he looked toward Louise, there was no
mistaking the slow dislike in his steely eyes.
"Your chauffeur, madam, has just returned," he announced. "He sent word
that he will be ready to start at one o'clock."
Louise, inspired to battle by the almost provocative hostility of her
elder host, smiled sweetly upon him.
"You can't imagine how sorry I am to hear it," she said. "I don't know
when, in the whole course of my life, I have met with such a delightful
adventure or spent such a perfect morning!"
Stephen looked at her with level disapproving eyes--at her slender form
in its perfectly fitting tailored gown; at her patent shoes, so
obviously unsuitable for her surroundings, and at the faint vision of
silk stockings.
"If I might say so without appearing inhospitable," he remarked, with
faint sarcasm, "this would seem to be the fitting moment for your
departure. A closer examination of our rough life up here might alter
your views."
She turned toward John, and caught the deprecating glance which flashed
from him to Stephen.
"Your brother is making fun of me," she declared. "He looks at me and
judges me just as I believe he would judge most people--sternly and
without mercy. After all, you know, even though I am a daughter of the
cities, there is another point of view--ours. Can you not believe that
the call which prompts men and women to do the things in life which are
really worth while is heard as often amid the hubbub of the city as in
the solitude of these austere hills?"
"The question is a bootless one," Stephen answered firmly. "The city
calls to its own, as the country holds its children, and both do best in
their own environment. Like to like, and each bird to his own nest. You
would be as much out of place here with us, madam, as my brother and I
on the pavements of your city."
"You may be right," she admitted, "yet you dismiss one of the greatest
questions in life with a single turn of your tongue. It is given to no
one to be infallible. It is even possible that you may be wrong."
"It is possible," Stephen agreed grimly.
"The things in life which are worth while," she continued, looking down
into the valley, "are common to all. They do not consist of one thing
for one man, another for another. To whom comes the greater share of
them--the dweller in the city, or you in your primitive and patriarchal
life? You rest your brains, you make the seasons feed you, you work
enough to keep your muscles firm, and nature does the rest. She brings
the food to your doors, and when your harvest is over your work is done.
There are possibilities of rust here, Mr. Strangewey!"
Stephen's smile was almost disdainful.
"Madam," he declared, "you have six or seven million people in London.
How many of them live by really creative and honorable work? How many
are there of polyglot race--Hebrews, Germans, foreigners of every type,
preying upon one another, making false incomes which exist only on
paper, living in false luxury, tasting false joys? The sign-post of our
lives must be our personal inclinations. Our inclinations--my brother's
inclinations and mine--lead us, as they have led my people for hundreds
of years, to seek the cleaner things in life and the simpler forms of
happiness. If I do not have the pleasure, madam, of seeing you again,
permit me to wish you farewell."
He turned and walked away. Louise watched him with very real interest.
"Do you know," she said to John, "there is something which I can only
describe as biblical about your brother, something a little like the
prophets of the Old Testament, in the way he sees only one issue and
clings to it. Are you, too, of his way of thinking?"
"Up to a certain point, I believe I am," he confessed. "I do not think I
could ever have lived in the city. I do not think I could ever have been
happy in any of the professions."
"Certainly I could not imagine you as a stock-broker or a lawyer. I feel
it hard to realize you in any of the ordinary walks of life. Still, you
know, the greatest question of all remains unanswered. Are you content
just to live and flourish and die? Are there no compelling obligations
with which one is born? Do you never feel cramped--in your mind, I
mean?--feel that you want to push your way through the clouds into some
other life?"
"I feel nearer the clouds here," he answered simply.
"I suppose you are sure of content--that is to say, if you can keep free
from doubts. Still, there is the fighting instinct, you know; the
craving for action. Don't you feel that sometimes?"
"Perhaps," he admitted.
They were leaving the churchyard now. She paused abruptly, pointing to a
single grave in a part of the churchyard which seemed detached from the
rest.
"Whose grave is that?" she inquired.
He hesitated.
"It is the grave of a young girl," he told her quietly.
"But why is she buried so far off, and all alone?" Louise persisted.
"She was the daughter of one of our shepherds," he replied. "She went
into service at Carlisle, and returned here with a child. They are both
buried there."
"Because of that her grave is apart from the others?"
"Yes," he answered. "It is very seldom, I am glad to say, that anything
of the sort happens among us."
For the second time that morning Louise was conscious of an unexpected
upheaval of emotion. She felt that the sunshine had gone, that the whole
sweetness of the place had suddenly passed away. The charm of its
simple austerity had perished.
"And I thought I had found paradise!" she cried.
She moved quickly from John Strangewey's side. Before he could realize
her intention, she had stepped over the low dividing wall and was on her
knees by the side of the plain, neglected grave. She tore out the spray
of apple-blossom which she had thrust into the bosom of her gown, and
placed it reverently at the head of the little mound. For a moment her
eyes drooped and her lips moved--she herself scarcely knew whether it
was in prayer. Then she turned and came slowly back to her companion.
Something had gone, too, from his charm. She saw in him now nothing but
the coming dourness of his brother. Her heart was still heavy. She
shivered a little.
"Come," she said, "let us go back!"
They commenced the steep descent in silence. Every now and then John
held his companion by the arm to steady her somewhat uncertain
footsteps. It was he at last who spoke.
"Will you tell me, please, what is the matter with you, and why you
placed that sprig of apple-blossom where you did?"
His tone woke her from her lethargy. She was a little surprised at its
poignant, almost challenging note.
"Certainly," she replied. "I placed it there as a woman's protest
against the injustice of that isolation."
"I deny that it is unjust."
She turned around and waved her hand toward the little gray building.
"The Savior to whom your church is dedicated thought otherwise," she
reminded him. "Do you play at being lords paramount here over the souls
and bodies of your serfs?"
"You judge without knowledge of the facts," he assured her calmly. "The
girl could have lived here happily and been married to a respectable
young man. She chose, instead, a wandering life. She chose, further, to
make it a disreputable one. She broke her mother's heart and soured her
father's latter years. She brought into the world a nameless child."
Louise's footsteps slackened.
"You men," she sighed, "are all alike! You judge only by what happens.
You never look inside. That is why your justice is so different from a
woman's. All that you have told me is very pitiful, but there is another
view of the case which you should consider. Let us sit down upon this
boulder for a few moments. There is something that I should like to say
to you before I go."
They sat upon a ledge of rock. Below them was the house, with its walled
garden and the blossom-laden orchard. Beyond stretched the moorland,
brilliant with patches of yellow gorse, and the hills, blue and melting
in the morning sunlight.
"Don't you men sometimes realize," she continued earnestly, "the many,
many guises in which temptation may come to a woman, especially to the
young girl so far from home? She may be very lonely, and she may care;
and if she cares, it is so hard to refuse the man she loves. The very
sweetness, the very generosity of a woman's nature prompts her to give,
give, give all the time. There are other women, similarly circumstanced,
who think only of themselves, of their own safety and happiness, and
they escape the danger; but are they to be praised and respected, while
she that yields is condemned and cast out? I feel that you are not going
to agree with me, and I do not wish to argue with you; but what I so
passionately object to is the sweeping judgment you make--the sheep on
one side and the goats on the other. That is how man judges; God looks
further. Every case is different. The law by which one should be judged
may be poor justice for another."
She glanced at him almost appealingly, but there was no sign of yielding
in his face.
"Laws," he reminded her, "are made for the benefit of the whole human
race. Sometimes an individual may suffer for the benefit of others. That
is inevitable."
"And so let the subject pass," she concluded, "but it saddens me to
think that one of the great sorrows of the world should be there like a
monument to spoil the wonder of this morning. Now I am going to ask you
a question. Are you the John Strangewey who has recently had a fortune
left to him?"
He nodded.
"You read about it in the newspapers, I suppose," he said. "Part of the
story isn't true. It was stated that I had never seen my Australian
uncle, but as a matter of fact he has been over here three or four
times. It was he who paid for my education at Harrow and Oxford."
"What did your brother say to that?"
"He opposed it," John confessed, "and he hated my uncle. He detests the
thought of any one of us going out of sight of our own hills. My uncle
had the wander-fever."
"And you?" she asked suddenly.
"I have none of it," he asserted.
A very faint smile played about her lips.
"Perhaps not before," she murmured; "but now?"
"Do you mean because I have inherited the money?"
She leaned a little toward him. Her smile now was more evident, and
there was something in her eyes which was almost like a challenge.
"Naturally!"
"What difference does my money make?" he demanded.
"Don't you realize the increase of your power as a human being?" she
replied. "Don't you realize the larger possibilities of the life that is
open to you? You can move, if you will, in the big world. You can take
your place in any society you choose, meet interesting people who have
done things, learn everything that is new, do everything that is worth
doing in life. You can travel to the remote countries of the globe. You
can become a politician, a philanthropist, or a sportsman. You can
follow your tastes wherever they lead you, and--perhaps this is the most
important thing of all--you can do everything upon a splendid scale."
He smiled down at her.
"That all sounds very nice," he admitted, "but supposing that I have no
taste in any of the directions you have mentioned? Supposing my life
here satisfies me? Supposing I find all that I expect to find in life
here on my own land, among my own hills? What then?"
She looked at him with a curiosity which was almost passionate. Her lips
were parted, her senses strained.
"It is not possible," she exclaimed, "that you can mean it!"
"But why not?" he protested. "I have not the tortuous brain of the
modern politician. I hate cities--the smell of them, the atmosphere of
them, the life in them. The desire for travel is only half born in me.
That may come--I cannot tell. I love the daily work here; I am fond of
horses and dogs. I know every yard of land we own, and I know what it
will produce. It interests me to try experiments--new crops, a new
distribution of crops, new machinery sometimes, new methods of
fertilizing. I love to watch the seasons come and reign and pass. I love
to feel the wind and the sun, and even the rain. All these things have
become a sort of appetite to me. I am afraid," he wound up a little
lamely, "that this is all very badly expressed, but the whole truth of
it is, you see, that I am a man of simple and inherited tastes. I feel
that my life is here, and I live it here and I love it. Why should I go
out like a _Don Quixote_ and search for vague adventures?"
"Because you are a man!" she answered swiftly. "You have a brain and a
soul too big for your life here. You eat and drink, and physically you
flourish, but part of you sleeps because it is shut away from the world
of real things. Don't you sometimes feel it in your very heart that
life, as we were meant to live it, can only be lived among your fellow
men?"
He looked upward, over his shoulder, at the little cluster of
farm-buildings and cottages, and the gray stone church.
"It seems to me," he declared simply, "that the man who tries to live
more than one life fails in both. There is a little cycle of life here,
among our thirty or forty souls, which revolves around my brother and
myself. You would think it stupid and humdrum, because the people are
peasants; but I am not sure that you are right. The elementary things,
you know, are the greatest, and those we have. Our young people fall in
love and marry. The joy of birth comes to our mothers, and the tragedy
of death looms over us all. Some go out into the world, some choose to
remain here. A passer-by may glance upward from the road at our little
hamlet, and wonder what can ever happen in such an out-of-the-way
corner. I think the answer is just what I have told you. Love and
marriage, birth and death happen. These things make life."
Her curiosity now had become merged in an immense interest. She laid her
fingers lightly upon his arm.
"You speak for your people," she said. "That is well. I can understand
their simple lives being as absorbing to them as ours are to us. I can
imagine how, here among your hills, you can watch as a spectator a cycle
of life which contains, as you have pointed out, every element of
tragedy and happiness. But you yourself?"
"I am one of them," he answered, "a necessary part of them."
"How you deceive yourself! I am sure you are honest, I am sure you
believe what you say, but will you remember what I am going to tell you?
The time will come, before very long, when you will feel doubts."
"Doubts about what?"
She smiled enigmatically.
"Oh, they will assert themselves," she assured him, "and you will
recognize them when they come. Something will whisper to you in your
heart that after all you are not of the same clay as these simple
folk--that there is a different mission in the world for a man like you
than to play the part of feudal lord over a few peasants. Sooner or
later you will come out into the world; and the sooner the better, I
think, Mr. John Strangewey, or you will grow like your brother here
among your granite hills."
He moved a little uneasily. All the time she was watching him. It seemed
to her that she could read the thoughts which were stirring in his
brain.
"You would like to say, wouldn't you," she went on, "that your brother's
is a useful and an upright life? So it may be, but it is not wide enough
or great enough. No one should be content with the things which he can
reach. He should climb a little higher, and pluck the riper fruit. Some
day you will feel the desire to climb. Something will come to you--in
the night, perhaps, or on the bosom of that wind you love so much. It
may be a call of music, or it may be a more martial note. Promise me,
will you, that when you feel the impulse you won't use all that
obstinate will-power of yours to crush it? You will destroy the best
part of yourself, if you do. You will give it a chance? Promise!"
She held out her hand with a little impulsive gesture. He took it in his
own, and held it steadfastly.
"I will remember," he promised.
Along the narrow streak of road, from the southward, they both watched
the rapid approach of a large motor-car. There were two servants upon
the front seat and one passenger--a man--inside. It swung into the level
stretch beneath them, a fantasy of gray and silver in the reflected
sunshine.
Louise had been leaning forward, her head supported upon her hands. As
the car slackened speed, she rose very slowly to her feet.
"The chariot of deliverance!" she murmured.
"It is the Prince of Seyre," John remarked, gazing down with a slight
frown upon his forehead.
She nodded. They had started the descent, and she was walking in very
leisurely fashion.
"The prince is a great friend of mine," she said. "I had promised to
spend last night, or, at any rate, some portion of the evening, at
Raynham Castle on my way to London."
He summoned up courage to ask her the question which had been on his
lips more than once.
"As your stay with us is so nearly over, won't you abandon your
incognito?"
"In the absence of your brother," she answered, "I will risk it. My name
is Louise Maurel."
"Louise Maurel, the actress?" he repeated wonderingly.
"I am she," Louise confessed. "Would your brother," she added, with a
little grimace, "feel that he had given me a night's lodging under false
pretense?"
John made no immediate reply. The world had turned topsyturvy with him.
Louise Maurel, and a great friend of the Prince of Seyre! He walked on
mechanically until she turned and looked at him.
"Well?"
"I am sorry," he declared bluntly.
"Why?" she asked, a little startled at his candor.
"I am sorry, first of all, that you are a friend of the Prince of
Seyre."
"And again why?"
"Because of his reputation in these parts."
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"I am not a scandalmonger," John replied dryly. "I speak only of what I
know. His estates near here are systematically neglected. He is the
worst landlord in the country, and the most unscrupulous. His tenants,
both here and in Westmoreland, have to work themselves to death to
provide him with the means of living a disreputable life."
"Are you not forgetting that the Prince of Seyre is a friend of mine?"
she asked stiffly.
"I forget nothing," he answered. "You see, up here we have not learned
the art of evading the truth."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"So much for the Prince of Seyre, then. And now, why your dislike of my
profession?"
"That is another matter," he confessed. "You come from a world of which
I know nothing. All I can say is that I would rather think of you--as
something different."
She laughed at his somber face and patted his arm lightly.
"Big man of the hills," she said, "when you come down from your frozen
heights to look for the flowers, I shall try to make you see things
differently!"
V
The prince, who had just been joined by Stephen, had descended from his
car and was waiting in the road when Louise and John approached. He came
a few paces forward to meet her, and held out both his hands.
"My dear wandering guest!" he exclaimed. "So I have found you at last!
What shall I say to this mishap which has robbed me of so many hours of
your visit? I am too happy, though, to know that you have suffered no
personal inconvenience."
"Thanks to the great kindness of my hosts," Louise replied, smiling a
little mockingly at Stephen, "I have been completely spoiled here,
prince, and I can only regard my accident as a delightful little
interlude."
The prince bowed, and half held out his hand to Stephen. The latter,
however appeared not to notice the movement.
"I shall always remember with gratitude," the prince declared, "the
kindness of Mr. Strangewey and his brother to my lost guest. I fear," he
went on regretfully, "that I do not seem very neighborly. I am not often
at Raynham Castle, except in August and September. I find your northern
air somewhat too severe for me."
"Your tenants, prince," Stephen remarked calmly, "would like to see a
little more of you."
The prince shrugged his shoulders. He was a man of medium height,
slender, with a long and almost colorless face. He carried himself with
the good-humored air of the man of the world among strange surroundings
toward which he desired to express his toleration. His clothes and voice
were perfectly English, although the latter was unusually slow and soft.
At first sight there was no apparent evidence of his foreign birth. He
turned once more toward Stephen.
"My agent, Mr. Simon, is a very excellent man, and I have every
confidence in his discretion. My tenants here could scarcely feel toward
me as they might have done if Raynham had come into my possession in the
direct line. However, this year, as it happens, I have made up my mind
to spend more time here. My keepers tell me that after four bad seasons
the prospects for grouse on my higher moors are excellent. I shall
hope," he added, turning to John, "to have you join us often. I must
confess that the only time I had ever heard your name, before the
newspapers advertised your recent good fortune, was in connection with
shooting. They tell me that you are the best shot and the finest
horseman in Cumberland."
"You were probably told that at Raynham," John remarked. "Our people
always exaggerate the prowess of their own folk, and my brother and I
are natives."
"I trust," the prince concluded, "that you will give me the opportunity
of judging for myself. And now, dear lady," he went on, turning to
Louise, "I am loath to lose another minute of my promised visit. I have
taken the liberty of telling your maid to place your wraps in my car. We
can reach Raynham in time for a late lunch. Your own car can follow us
and bring your maid."
For a moment Louise did not reply. The prince had moved a few steps
away, to give some directions to his chauffeur, and he saw nothing of
the strange look of indecision that had suddenly crept into her face.
Her eyebrows were contracted. She had turned, and was gazing up the
precipitous strip of moorland toward the gray-walled church. Then she
glanced at John Strangewey, and her eyes seemed filled with the
questioning of a child. It was as if she had abandoned the role of
mentor, as if she herself were seeking for guidance or help.
John's unspoken response was prompt and unmistakable; and she smiled
ever so slightly. She no longer thought him narrow and prejudiced, an
unfair judge of things beyond his comprehension. He had helped her in a
moment of trial. An idea had flashed between them, and she acted upon it
with amazing promptitude.
"Alas, prince," she sighed, as he turned back toward them, "I am so
sorry, but I fear that this little accident must change all my plans! As
you know, mine was to have been only a brief stay at Raynham, and I fear
now that even that is impossible."
The prince drew a step nearer. Something of the calm suavity had
suddenly gone from his manner. When he spoke, his measured words were
full of appeal.
"But, my dear friend," he begged, "you will not rob me altogether of
this visit, to which I have looked forward so eagerly? It was to receive
you for a few hours that I came from Paris and opened Raynham Castle.
You yourself shall decide the length of your stay, and a special train
shall take you back to London the moment you give the word. In that way
you will both save time and spare me--one of the greatest
disappointments of my life!"
She shook her head, slowly and very decisively.
"You cannot imagine how sorry I am, prince," she said, "but as it is I
must take a special train from Kendal, if there is not one starting
soon after I reach the station. I wish to reach London either this
evening or very early in the morning."
The prince was holding himself in restraint with a visible effort. His
eyes were fixed upon Louise's face, as if trying to read her thoughts.
"Is the necessity so urgent?" he asked.
"Judge for yourself," she replied. "Henri Graillot is there, waiting for
me. You know how impatient he is, and all London is clamoring for his
play. Night to him is just the same as day. I shall telegraph from
Kendal the hour of my arrival."
The prince sighed.
"I think," he said quietly, "that I am the most unfortunate man in the
world! At least, then, you will permit me to drive you to Kendal? I
gather from your chauffeur that your car, although temporarily repaired,
is not altogether reliable."
She answered him only after a slight hesitation. For some reason or
other, his proposition did not seem wholly welcome.
"That will be very kind of you," she assented.
"If we start at once," the prince suggested, "we shall catch the Scotch
mail."
"You will surely lunch first--and you, prince?" John begged.
She laid her hand upon his arm.
"My friend, no," she replied. "I am feverishly anxious to get back to
London. Walk with me to the car. I will wave my adieus to Peak Hall when
we are up among the hills."
She drew him on a few paces ahead.
"I am going back to London," she continued, lowering her voice a little,
"with some very strange impressions and some very pleasant memories. I
feel that your life here is, in its way, very beautiful, and yet the
contemplation of your future fills me with an immense curiosity. I have
not talked to you for very long, Mr. Strangewey, and you may not be
quite the sort of person I think you are, but I am seldom mistaken. I am
an artist, you see, and we have perceptions. I think that even here the
time will come when the great unrest will seize you, too, in its toils.
Though the color may not fade from your hills, and though the
apple-blossom may still glorify your orchard, and your flowers bloom and
smell as sweetly, and your winds bring you the same music, I think that
the time will come when the note in you which answers to these things,
and which gives you contentment, will fail to respond. Then I think--I
hope, perhaps--that we may meet."
She spoke very softly, almost under her breath, and when she had
finished there seemed everywhere a strange emptiness of sound. The
panting of the engine from the motor-car, Stephen's measured words as he
walked with his uncongenial companion, seemed to come to John from some
other world.
His voice, when he spoke, sounded a little harsh. Although he was
denying it fiercely to himself, he was filled with a dim, harrowing
consciousness that the struggle had already begun. Notwithstanding the
unrealized joy of these few hours, his last words to Louise were almost
words of anger; his last look from beneath his level, close-drawn
eyebrows was almost militant.
"I hope," he declared, "that what you have said may not be true. I hope
fervently that the time may never come when I shall feel that I need
anything more in life than I can find in the home I love, in the work
which is second nature to me, in my books and my sports!"
The prince, escaping gracefully from a companion who remained adamant to
all his advances, had maneuvered his way to their side. The last few
steps were taken together. In a few moments they were in the car and
ready to start. Stephen, with a stiff little bow, had already departed.
Louise leaned out from her place with outstretched hands.
"And now good-by, dear Mr. Strangewey! Your brother would not let me
make my little speech to him, so you must accept the whole of my thanks.
And," she went on, the corners of her mouth twitching a little, although
her face remained perfectly grave, "if the time should come when the
need of reinvestments, or of some new machinery for your farm, brings
you to London, will you promise that you will come and see me?"
"I will promise that with much pleasure," John answered.
She leaned back and the prince took her place, holding out his hand.
"Mr. Strangewey, although your luck has been better than mine, and you
have robbed me of a visit to which I had looked forward for months, I
bear you no ill-will. I trust that you will do me the honor of shooting
with me before long. My head keeper arranges for the local guns, and I
shall see that he sends you a list of the days on which we shall shoot.
May I beg that you will select the most convenient to yourself? If you
have no car here, it will give me additional pleasure to welcome you at
Raynham as my guest."
John, struggling against an instinctive dislike of which, for many
reasons, he was a little ashamed, murmured a few incoherent words. The
prince leaned back and the car glided away, followed, a few minutes
later, by Louise's own landaulet, with Aline in solitary state inside.
John watched the little procession until it finally disappeared from
sight; then he turned on his heel and went into the house. Stephen, who
had just filled a pipe, was smoking furiously in the hall.
"Have they gone?" he demanded.
John nodded.
"They are racing into Kendal to catch the Scotchman for London."
"The sooner she gets there, the better," Stephen growled.
John raised his head. The light of battle flashed for a moment in his
eyes.
"She came here unbidden," he said, "and we did no more than our bounden
duty in entertaining her. For the rest, what is there that you can say
against her? Women there must be in the world. Why do you judge those
who come your way so harshly?"
Stephen withdrew the pipe from his mouth and dealt the black oak table
in front of him a blow with his great fist. Even John himself was struck
with the sudden likeness of his brother's face to the granite rocks
which were piled around their home.
"I'll answer your question, John," he said. "I'll tell you the truth as
I see it and as I know it. Women there must be to breed men's sons, to
care for their households; even, I grant you, to be their companions and
to lighten the dark days when sorrow comes. But she isn't that sort. She
is as far removed from them as our mountain road is from the scented
thoroughfares of Bond Street or the Rue de la Paix, where she might take
her daily exercise. I'll tell you about her, John. She is one of those
who have sown the hatred of women in my heart. Do you know what I call
them, John? I call them witch-women. There's something of the devil in
their blood. They call themselves artists. They have the gift of turning
the heads and spoiling the lives of sober, well-living men, till they
make them dance to their bidding along the ways of shame, and turn their
useful lives into the dotage of a love-sick boy. They aren't
child-bearing women, that sort! They don't want to take their proper
place in your household by your side, breed sons and daughters for you,
sink their own lives in the greater duties of motherhood. There's
generally a drop of devilish foreign blood in their veins, as she has.
Our grandmother had it. You know the result. The empty frame in the
lumber-room will tell you."
John, half angry, half staggered by his brother's vehemence, was for the
moment a little confused.
"There may be women like that, Stephen," he confessed. "I am not denying
the truth of much that you say. But what right have you to class her
among them? What do you know of her?"
"It's written in her face," Stephen answered fiercely. "Women like her
breathe it from their lips when they speak, just as it shines out of
their eyes when they look at you. An actress, and a friend of the Prince
of Seyre! A woman who thought it worth her while, during her few hours'
stay here--" John had suddenly straightened himself. Stephen clenched
his teeth. "Curse it, that's enough!" he said. "She's gone, anyway.
Come, let's have our lunch!"